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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
NEW HOAX FINDINGS
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
NEW HOAX FINDINGS
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 08:09 am |        | Hi Martin, Paul, everyone,
Martin, you put in brackets: The honest diarists, by the way, attribute its delayed appearance to the book's having been closed for 100 years, and only starting to be examined and exposed to oxygen over the last ten or so.
I thought there’d be a get-out clause somewhere for those pesky ‘honest diarists’. 
What I’d like to know is if there is, or was, any support for this idea coming from the scientists themselves. I presume they would have considered the ‘closed book’ possibility as a matter of course, and commented accordingly on whether it merited their rejection on scientific grounds. Or does it remain an unknown or unresolved factor in determining the duration of the ink’s inconstant behaviour?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 09:21 am | | Caz,
I'm not a scientist, so I won't presume to speak for them. People sounding off outside their own fields of expertise have done more than enough harm in the diary discussions!
Martin |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 09:38 am | | Martin/Caz
Bearing Martin's excellent stricture in mind, I'm not sure that the scientists would have considered the 'closed book' issue. The scientists tend to work according to the letter of what they are asked and don't engage in speculation. They would observe that the ink had not bronzed. They would not speculate why it might not have bronzed, especially when the most immediate reason was that the ink hadn't been on the paper long enough to bronze.
When I've said that I was concerned that the right questions weren't being asked, this is the sort of thing I meant. Lack of bronzing would be taken as evidence of a very recent forgery, but nobody asked whether lack of bronzing was capable of another explanation. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 11:37 am | | Thanks Martin and Paul.
And with that, I'll really get me coat and get back to my own field - of expert teas.
Have a good weekend both.
Love,
Caz |
Author: David Halstead
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 12:08 pm | | Greetings all.
I am glad that the socks/shirt debate didn't become too personal (unique to the boards, i think)
Can someone tell me who currently has possession of the 'diary'? Is it available to public viewing?
Thanks to anyone who can help
David |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 12:35 pm | | | The 'diary' is currently owned by Robert Smith, now a literary agent but formerly a publisher who published Shirley Harrison's book. It is, I believe, locked in a safe. It isn't available for public inspection, unless you are lucky enough to see it at a special event such as when it was brought to the Cloak and Dagger Club. I had hoped to have it at the U.K. Conference in Bournemouth in September but the schedule is very full with a ton of exciting stuff on view, including, it is hoped, the original "Dear Boss" letter to tie-in with a tribute to Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner on the publication of their new book about the letters. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 03:40 pm | | Dear Paul,
Much as we feel we are thoroughly deserving of a tribute, our modesty forbids us from allowing you to grovel openly at our feet at Bournemouth (no doubt to check if we are wearing daffodil yellow socks). The fact that the book is being given a launch at the conference is more than enough for us. You may be interested to know that the final manuscript was completed today.
Furthermore we would like to take this opportunity to tell everyone what a super, excellent, brilliant, must-have, can't wait for, well-illustrated, full of info., ground-breaking, astonishing, &c. magazine Ripperologist is! We also happen to think that the editor (who often says the nicest things) is a capital fellow and a model of sobriety.
Yours &c.
Keith and Stewart
P.S. You may also be interested to know that we have a dear old boy who we feel he has much promise, doing the foreword for us! |
Author: Richard Buchko
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 07:13 pm | | | Just a quick question while I pour over old posts and try to catch up: How definite are the tests with regards to the age of the ink/paper. That is - are they scientifically conclusive? Do they prove the diary a forgery? Are there people who disagree with those tests? Forgive me, I am looking for a summary of many posts and discussions, and while I will seek them all out over time, there are so many to read and I am way behind. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 08:14 am | | Richard,
To test anything for anachronistic components can be an endless task. When you consider the vegetable fibre composition of paper, for example, you have to be amazingly lucky if you can establish the presence of a grass you can prove was not imported for paper-making at the supposed time of the document (as Carter & - I can never remember the second guy's name - did in exposing thomas J. Wise's forgeries of 19th century privately-issued poems). So Nick Eastaugh has never claimed that his tests on the paper are conclusive.
On the ink, when Mike Barrett claimed to have bought a bottle of manuscript ink from a specific shop in Liverpool, it was quickly established that this would have been Diamine MS ink, and Mr Voller of Diamine immediately observed that an unusual modern chemical should have been detected in it. This proved to be chloroacetamide, which, however, had been employed in ink-making from the 1860s, though it is hardly ever used today. Two separate laboratories then tested for it: one found it to be present, the other did not. Questions were asked about possible contamination during the tests (and, completely absurdly, the suggestion of deliberate contamination of samples was postulated). If you ever dare to say publicly which lab test you think the more reliable, you will be in danger of being bombarded with correspondence from the other side! To the best of my knowledge, however, Shirley Harrison's suggestion that both labs be asked to repeat their tests under controlled condisions has never been taken up.
With all good wishes,
Martin Fido |
Author: Richard Buchko
Wednesday, 04 April 2001 - 07:46 pm | | First of all, thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my posts - recent and past. I was offline for a while, and missed (again) a lot.
The one argument that strikes me as, well, arguable, is that the life of Maybrick was one which was well known, and therefore he made an ideal "suspect" if the diary is a hoax. His comings and goings, according to this thread, are documented, and therefore a hoaxer had the perfect candidate, rather than someone lesser known, because Maybricks travels would provide verification for the diary. While this is certainly true, it also begs the question: If Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, and this was his diary, wouldn't the events fit in just as well? In other words, doesn't it all depend on your point of view?
I have asked this question a few times, and please don't think I am trying to be a pain by asking it again, as I am merely trying to make sure the question reaches new people. The question: Is there a single piece of compelling evidence which proves the diary was not writeen by Maybrick? I see many things to suggest it wasn't, and many to suggest it was. Admittedly, I have missed a lot of what goes on this board. Is there the opposite of a smoking gun - the anti-gun?
Still catching up - but falling farther behind as I do.
Rich |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 04 April 2001 - 10:46 pm | | Rich - There's an excellent recent posting by John Omer on another board making your case exactly and at considerable length, and compelling all of us who have long held pretty fixed opinions to sort out very carefully what we know as fact and what is only our opinion and deduction.
I think it fair to say that nobody at all who argues the case for any other candidate whatsoever can consistently claim that Maybrick has been decisively shown not to be the Ripper. Those like Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow who firmly reject every suspect so far named, however, are perfectly justified in putting forward the opinion that Maybrick is 'obviously' not the Ripper. But even they need to distinguish between his case and that of (say) Prince Albert Victor, whose innocence is conclusively established by his distance from certain of the murder sites at the murder times. But anybody who argues for any one suspect can only point to the differing thinness or persuasiveness of the various cases made against named suspects.
Which doesn't mean that I think there was anything wrong in the vehement anti-diarists forming an immediate opinion that the Maybrick diary was 'obviously' an opportunistic fraud. I myself shall be equally vehement if I hear that an Edison phonograph cylinder playing Mr Gladstone's heartfelt confession has come to light. And it is necessary to bear in mind that absolutely the only evidence against Maybrick is the diary. And of those who have studied the case at length, only Paul Feldman and Shirley Harrison, as far as I know, remain persuaded that it is probably not a forgery.
Martin F |
Author: Richard Buchko
Sunday, 08 April 2001 - 11:05 pm | | | Thank you, Martin. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 09 April 2001 - 06:52 am | | Don't mench. You're welc.
Martin |
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